Left 4 Dead 2: I'm Right Here
by hidden-in-a-tree
Summary: Nick's long-needed sleep is ripped from his grasp when the other survivors decide to discuss what they'll do when they get rescued. Oneshot. Tragedy. Nick's POV.


**Author's Note: **This one made my heart hurt a little bit … kind of depressing to write. But oh well. It's incredibly short, but … sometimes that's how it goes. Sometimes life's short.

Oneshot. Tragedy. Nick's POV.

**Disclaimer: **I own no one mentioned.

**Acknowledgements: **Thanks to Amanda for reading this over and calling it "epic." You're amazing. I'd like to say thanks to Sean for reading this, but all he said was, "I dun get it." So if this makes no sense, I'd love to hear it, lol. 'Cause stories that need to be explained by the author are definitely missing something crucial.

**Summary: **Nick's long-needed sleep is ripped from his grasp when the other survivors decide to discuss what they'll do when they get rescued.

**I'm Right Here**

Nick could feel sleep approaching him hesitantly, trepidation in every step. Lazily, somewhere deep within his subconscious, he waved the Sand Man over, the movement casual. _Come on over_, the action said, _I've been waiting for you for so long …_

"What's everyone goin' t'do when we get rescued?" Ellis inquired loudly, his voice exuberant, cheerful, the way it always was. Nick could hear a wide grin in the twenty-three year old's tone, but he didn't feel like he could lift his weighted eyelids to check.

"One word: Burger Tank," Coach boomed, his voice rich and melodious, rolling with perfect quality like an aged and mature mountain range that's been weathered down to just foothills.

"Bathe. Definitely bathe," Rochelle replied, the words upbeat, positive. There was a sweet smile on her lips, Nick knew for a fact.

"Sleep," Nick croaked in response, and the effort it took for his lips to move shocked him slightly. Was he really that exhausted?

"Naw, Nick, do somethin' more excitin' than tha'," Ellis said. Rochelle and Coach both agreed loudly, their voices echoing around the sparsely furnished room.

"I –" Nick tried, but his words were cut off by a rib-cracking cough that made him double over as he wheezed, his hands pressed firmly against his eyes making flashing orbs of white and blue appear before his sightless pupils. The others were silent as he coughed. "I'll … probably shower," he finally pushed out, the words rough and raw in comparison to the other survivors' beautiful voices.

They sounded like they were just fine. Somehow, positivity had given them an edge over Nick: he was near death while they were perfectly healthy.

"Aw, Nick, y'sound like y'don' believe we'll all get rescued," Ellis chided childishly, and Nick grinned painfully despite split and oozing lips. A few of his teeth were gone, the tissue of his lips passing over empty spaces.

The thirty-five year old sighed softly, feeling the roughness of his hands against his eyelids. The dark was comforting to his fatigued eyes.

"CEDA … can't save me," he whispered harshly, the slight breath against his bone-dry vocal chords agony.

"Nick, man, you ain't dead yet," Coach said, still joyful. Still happy. They all were.

"You've still got some fight left in you," Rochelle agreed.

"Y'can't jus' … give up," Ellis murmured, abruptly serious. Almost on the verge of tears, it sounded like.

"I –" Nick was cut off again by another fit of hacking. He was severely dehydrated, he knew that. He needed a hospital. He could feel blood from multiple wounds pooling around him as he lay on the gritty-with-dirt cement floor. He didn't even know how he managed to make it into the safe house under his own steam.

"Nick –" Rochelle whispered –

"Nick –" Coach's voice –

"Nick –" Ellis pleading –

"I'm right … here," Nick forced out, painfully pulling his leaden arms away from his face, and they fell to the floor with a startling thud. He wearily opened his eyes.

A breeze from a broken, dirt-encrusted window flowed through the empty safe house, stirring the musty air. The breath of fresh air gently lifted the locks of his dusty, dark brown hair for a second before they settled down on his sweaty scalp.

"I'm … right here," Nick rasped, his eyes open wide, unblinking. "So where … the fuck did you … guys go, huh? Where?"

Somewhere the answer was hiding in his mind, under layers upon layers of thick, hazy fog. He fought off unconsciousness for another second as he recalled that Ellis, Rochelle, and Coach were dead and they'd been that way for countless days. The realization didn't frighten him – he'd heard their voices clear as day – and as his eyelids closed, he felt a warm breath of comfort steal over his body.

Or was that just his blood continuing to flow out of all the open wounds?

The fallen survivors weren't a figment of his fevered brain – they were there, but just a little out of reach … maybe enveloped in the shadows of the room, biding their time until Nick became one of them.


End file.
